Up To Me

Somewhere on the lower slopes of Trail Ridge Road, I realize that gravity is not cruel, just misunderstood.

Just ask the next physicist you meet to explain it all to you. Nobody can. Even now, centuries after Galileo dropped cannonballs off the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the essence of gravity remains a mystery. Though we can predict many consequences of the force that made those balls fall, we do not understand exactly what it was that made them fall, anymore than we know for sure how the sun exerts force on the earth, at a distance of 93 million miles, merely because of its size. Or the earth on the moon. Or why everything on earth “gravitates” downhill, from cannonballs to running water to cyclists. We know some of the principles, certainly. But are they reliant on gravity particles, like electrons, or rays, or invisible gravity beams?

It took a cyclist, by the way, to even begin to understand the nature of gravity—a guy by the name of Einstein. His theory of general relativity says that the mass of very large objects seems to warp space and time, like a bowling ball resting on a water bed. Any other, smaller object coming near the bowling ball gets sucked into the indentation made by the bowling ball. That was his theory, and it helped our understanding a lot, but let’s just say that a few details still need to be worked out. (Like: Einstein had a water bed?)

And right now, this bothers me. On this particular July morning on Trail Ridge Road, I have been climbing for close to an hour, gaining a couple thousand vertical feet—but also tunneling deep inside my own head.

Through some mysterious aspect of gravity that brings unlike cyclists together, I have found myself drawn, bowling-ball-on-water-bed-style, to Kelly, a compact and sturdy blonde mother of two who shares in common with me not much more than our pace. The two of us pedal in sync as the road loops back on itself in graceful switchbacks, as if its route had been traced by a hawk soaring upward on morning thermals eons ago.

Photo: David Epperson

Trail Ridge is not just another stunning Colorado climb. It tops out at 12,175 feet on its way between Granby and Estes Park, making it the highest continuously paved road (that is, paved all the way through) in North America. Actually, make that “the world.” Construction on Trail Ridge began in the summer of 1929 and continued into the Great Depression, whereupon it became a model for the bold public-works projects of the New Deal. Because of the harsh wintry conditions up that high, the 150-man crew could work only four months out of the year, and the workers had to take care to avoid areas of high-altitude permafrost as they ­followed what the local Arapaho had known as the Dog Trail. Construction lasted nine years (only slightly more time than it seems I might need to ride the 4,000 feet of elevation gain), and the result was a road unlike any other in America. Winding across the alpine tundra, above treeline for 11 of its 42 miles, with low-profile stone guardrails and slate-gray peaks in every direction, Trail Ridge would not be out of place among the great climbs of the Tour de France.

Although we are riding in peak tourist season, we’ve seen minimal traffic so far—just a few early-bird tourists and a handful of contractors’ vans taking the shortcut between Grand Lake and Estes Park. Making chit-chat, trying to divert my mind, I say, “Where is everybody?”

“They’re still home eating their bacon,” Kelly says, her voice modulating between envy and mild contempt.

I am starting to develop a slight crush on her—never mind the happy marriage and two kids she’s told me about. That’s something else neither science nor logic can explain about gravity but which any cyclist knows: A really great climb peels back your emotional defenses, leaves you vulnerable to whatever feelings drift into your head on the mountain air or bubble up from deep inside.

Back East, where I live and ride, our climbs are often described as “punchy,” like a punch in the face. The typical rise involves two to five minutes of lactic-acid hell, and topping out is much more likely to bring relief than enlightenment. On Trail Ridge, we are looking at about two hours of climbing. A lot can happen in that time when you’re on a bike headed uphill.

The author had many temporary companions on Trail Ridge Road, but only one permanent one: his head. (David Epperson)

We settle into new rhythms, and I slowly pull away from Kelly. Soon, I am riding alone, each pedal stroke drawing me deeper into the mountain’s peculiar energy field. The bacon has been eaten, and there is more traffic now. But as the drivers and their passengers zoom by, we are in competely different worlds, and, except for the bacon part, I prefer mine. They cannot smell the lodgepole needles on the forest floor or feel how the air is both chilly and warming at the same time. To me, gravity is real, a gentle but insistent hand pushing me backward, reminding me that if I stop pedaling, I will stop moving. To them it is an abstraction, just something that makes their rental car’s engine whine a little louder.

Then, at 10,500 feet, having ridden alone for some time now, I am forced to deal with my own failings. I suddenly want nothing more than to quit, to turn around and freewheel back to the bottom. How liberating that would feel—that wheee! Who needs to reach the top, anyway?

What’s happening is that the climb is bringing to surface a piece of my character I regret and keep buried: a lifelong tendency to bail out at the exact wrong time, whether it’s going for a header in high-school soccer, in my work, or in relationships. Too often, I pull back at the exact point when I need to go harder. Riding a bike has been a way of training myself not to give up. Now, here on Trail Ridge Road, I am about to find out how ­successful I’ve been. Or not. I pedal on in a fierce, private war.

The road reaches a kind of saddle, flattening for a few hundred precious yards beside the turquoise oblong of Poudre Lake, the high point of the Cache la Poudre River. This water, I realize, is headed for New Orleans; it’ll never see the summit. Somehow, this cheers me. If I want to reach the crest, all I need to do is ride on. I should feel terrible up here, as the road climbs higher and the oxygen content drops, but it seems like the higher I climb, the stronger I feel. Even gravity seems to be weakening.

When the road breaks out of the trees, I catch a glimpse of the visitor center on the ridge high above. The cars in the parking lot look like miniatures. Surrounded by peaks, some still dotted with snow, I feel small, too. I pedal through a huge, V-shaped switchback, past the parked sag van of the outfitter that brought me here, Iconic Adventures, and in what feels like no time at all, I’m at the visitor center; in fact, I rode by the lake half an hour ago. The parking lot is stacked full with Winnebagos and Jeeps and an Amish family from Tennessee who’d been driven there in a black van. There are bathrooms, and Coke machines, yellow school buses disgorging teenagers, Harley riders strutting around in leathers, and a big bull elk surveying the whole scene from a nearby slope. I keep going. This is a corral, not a summit.

The road steepens—but it yields ever more easily to me now. I ride another bend and spot the real summit up ahead. There’s no pull-off spot, not even a guardrail. It’s just a subtle, unmarked hump in the road that few tourists must even notice. When I get there, I will stand and hammer the last few dozen ­pedal strokes. When I get there, I will see a few ­other cyclists and we will touch leather palms to celebrate our tired, shared but separate and personal­ triumphs. When I get there, ­gravity will, at last, surrender and embrace me. When I get there. When I get there. When I get there.

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